What weather conditions did you brave for a system launch?

[Dobie]

The forecast is going to be a low of 22 degrees fahrenheit, with winds of 10-15 mph. BRRR! This is the first, and probably last, time I ever line up for something like this. I took this week off of work a few months ago thinking I had a console all locked up at EB, but given the circumstances, I'm forced to wait it out with the rest of you. It would be a waste to not have a console to play with! I know some of you sat through the rain and cold for other launches, so tell me what you put up with.

[Flack]

Well, for the PS2 launch my wife and I took lawn chairs and sat outside a neighboring Wal-Mart on a cold October night. My local Wal-Mart is open 24 hours, so when we went up there at 10pm there were already 30 or 40 people waiting for the 6 systems they had. So, instead we drove 15 minutes away to a regular Wal-Mart and decided to wait there. We took chairs, wore winter coats, and brought a blanket as well. We were the only people there from 10pm - Midnight. At midnight two other dudes showed up who were into wrestling and so I talked to them for a couple of hours. By 3am there were probably 10 people waiting. I had called ahead and knew they only had 6 systems and tried to tell people, but some people were so desperate to get one that they stayed. Around 6am there were about 30 people there. At 7am they opened the doors and let the first six of us in. We were cold but okay. My wife and I bought the first two PS2s sold in Mustang, OK.

[TEND]

Well, I don't recall what the weather was like when I waited for my PS2, I'd assume there was snow though.
For Halo 2 though, we had a hell of a rain, plus my car was not in working condition. I'm sure your imagination can take it from there.

[Slipdeath]

Well this is the first I have to wait for a system, so im probably going to head out to my walmart around 4 am(its going to be 48 degrees). Kind of scared, not the best neighborhood. If I get killed, I'll miss you guys!

[InsaneDavid]

I actually just posted something like this in another thread about XBox360 midnight stuff, but it works better here so I've changed some of the post around.

I was in the PS2 overnight line (8 1/2 hours) and the GameCube line (10 hours) in front of Target Stores.

The PS2 lines were the phenomenon of the last generation, and proof that the original PlayStation was as impactful to the industry as the NES. The gaming gods made that October 26th a special night, hell it rained nearly everywhere in the US coast to coast that night. I was 12th in that line (of 93 consoles) and I got into it at 11:30pm the night before, just after coming off work there. There were over 500 people in that line and it stretched around the outside of the building. At 8am tickets were passed out (this was the same later with the GameCube line) to the first 93, this guy a few back from me doubled back and picked up two tickets - he sold one of them for $50 on the spot to a guy that just happened to be getting to the store. Even though there were only 93 consoles and way more than that many people, there were a few who didn't have the balance on their credit card - so a few random people were able to grab them after the outdoor line had dispersed.

The GameCube lines were VERY different. People started to line up at like 6pm but I had a friend and coworker who was closing that night (I set myself up for the morning shift earlier that day and then had the next day off, ahh the perks of Electronics 3) make up this crap story about them being at the doors during business hours being a fire evacuation hazard. So the executives couldn't argue with him and assets protection dispersed the crowd. The "crowd" came back at 10pm but that was really just me and a bunch of my friends. We basically had a launch party in front of the store all night, a real line didn't form until about 6am, there were 96 consoles, I was 1st. That night the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of you once you got away from the store and it was like 36 degrees all night. We drove across the street at one point to a Safeway they just put in and ended up getting lost in the under construction parking lot because we couldn't find the freaking street in the fog.

Oh, and for the hell of it, here are some pictures from the video shot on GameCube launch night...


"Cube Count" tare-off sign, constructed from the XBox display box.


Ahh, me in my younger days.


For it being so cold and all of us hopped up on Korean RedBull, we still amazingly were able to make hourly video updates.


We patched into a powerbox for the parking lot lights at the bottom of a lightpost across from the front of the store, so with a nice long extension cord we had power to run computers, TV, DVD, Dreamcast (with plenty of fighting imports), etc.


The line may have been really just the 12 or so of us throughout the night but once the sun came up the rush came on.

[Sothy]

Waiting in line for 187 Ride Or DIE